Through the lands of the Serb,

I UB I67 married an English wife who is exceedingly happy. Finally, worn out by his fruitless exertions, he fell asleep. At eleven we put up at Ub, and I had plenty of time to amuse myself. Sitting on the bench by the inn door, I made folded paper toys for the children, and soon had a semicircle of tiny boys round me. A little gipsy girl looked on at them with superb contempt. As soon as they had cleared off, she sailed up and seated herself by my side with the air of one conferring a favour. She was a slip of a thing, nine I X years old, but with the self-possession of fifty. "I am ciganka" (gipsy), she said. "Where do you come from?" I told her, but she had never heard of my native land. She was brown as a berry, and had on nothing but a dirty old scarlet frock which had shed its fastenings. She dangled her skinny brown legs and fixed me with her sparkling black eyes; her hair, she told me, was far superior to my own; in proof of her words, she took off the yellow handkerchief in which her head was swathed and offered for inspection a small and most filthy plait of coal-black hair in which were fastened three or four coins, which she pointed out with glee. It was, in fact, the savings bank in which she had just opened an account. I at once produced a nickel 2d., which she accepted with much satisfaction. A man on the next bench threw down a cigarette end, and she pounced on it like a cat on a mouse. When she returned with it, she looked cautiously round to be sure that no one else could see, and then, sheltered by my skirts, she extracted from inside her frock a handkerchief tied up in a bundle, and displayed with great pride a mass of cigarette

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Title: Through the lands of the Serb,
Author: Durham, Mary E.
Canvas: Page 167
Publication: London,: E. Arnold,; 1904.
Subject terms: Montenegro -- Description and travel; Serbia -- Description and travel.

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Collection: Travels in Southeastern Europe
Link to this Item: https://name.umdl.umich.edu/afg3925.0001.001
Link to this scan: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/b/bosnia/afg3925.0001.001/205

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Manifest: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/api/manifest/bosnia:afg3925.0001.001

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Full citation: "Through the lands of the Serb,." In the digital collection Travels in Southeastern Europe. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/afg3925.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed April 28, 2025.

Through the lands of the Serb,

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